Most Popular Q&A For The Make A Magazine Course

Since releasing my own newsstand magazine course I receive quite a few emails asking various questions, so I thought I would share the latest one I received from someone looking to produce 2 magazines.

UPDATEs:

• I created a video answering the question – How can I add links and embed videos into my magazine? scroll down to the end of the post to see.
• After creating the video, I have answered more questions. You can find them all as you scroll down..

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Make A Magazine Course Q&A

Hi xxxxx,

Great to hear you want to produce a few magazines.

I know Magcast very well as I was once of the first people to use it over a year ago. It is a great product and I run one of my magazines using it (Today’s Trader Magazine).

The down side of Magcast and many other similar providers is the cost and this is exactly why I decided to find out how I can produce a magazine without the expensive outlay.

The course I have produced is aimed at allowing anyone to produce a magazine with minimal ongoing cost. The course makes use of the Baker eBook Framework. See more here… http://bakerframework.com/ … If you wish you can just follow the instructions on the site and make your magazine without the need to purchase my course. I made the course because it took me a long time to figure everything out because the instructions on the Baker website can be difficult to follow.

Back to the course… All you need to pay for is somewhere to host your files online and the Apple developer fee. There are no other costs involved. By the way, these costs are also additional cost if using magcast too.

Let me go through your questions in order so I make sure I cover everything…

Q1) Do you have a magazine published on the platform?
A1) Yes, the course documents me going through every single step to publish a magazine called PUBZIE. You can see it in iTunes here… https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/pubzie-magazine-for-digital/id666326388?mt=8

Q2) Are there ongoing fees?
A2) The only ongoing fees are $99 per year apple fee + approx $3 per month fee for your own file hosting. If you have a website already, then you already have a place to host your magazine files.

Q3) How long on average will it take to get up and going after completing training and have content?
A3) It’s difficult to say due to each individuals own knowledge and speed. If I had a PDF to turn into a magazine from scratch today, just following the procedures in the course it would only take me around 3-4 hours. But, you need to keep in mind that Apple slow things down an awful lot. Once you have completed all your work you have to send it to Apple for them to review and approve (this happens for every app/magazine). They usually take between 7 -14 days before starting the review process, but once they start it usually is completed within 12 hours.

The way the course is structured, I take you through all the steps in detail using a dummy magazine. After that, I then start the Pubzie magazine to show you how fast it can be done once you know the ins and outs. This is lecture 33, 34 and 35 of the course… so you can see it is pretty quick.

Q4) Can this format be viewed on itunes, ipads, & iphones?
A4) The course is all about publishing the magazine to iTunes to be viewed on the iPad & iPhone. The specific examples I give are all designed for the iPad but the Magazine App you make can be tailored for the iPhone too. Just change some of the settings mentioned on the baker framework website.

Q5) How many issues can I create per magazine?
A5) There is no limit. You can create as many issues as you like.

Q6) Can I create several magazine titles with one account or will I need a new account set up with each app thing?
A6) You will be creating the magazine titles yourself so you own everything. You can create as many magazines as you wish. You can publish all your magazines under your own Apple developer account or if you are publishing on behalf of someone else, you can use their account.

I haven’t created the course to make me rich or anything like that. It’s more of a hobby for me. My main profession is completely outside of magazine publishing but as I have worked out how to publish magazines, I decided to create the course to share the knowledge. Plus, I love teaching 🙂

If I can show people how to publish magazines for as little as possible and at the same time make back the money to cover the time I have invested in the magazine training, I will be a happy guy.

If you have any more questions just let me know. Also, I often talk with other people about the course over skype, so if you want to discuss any part of publishing a magazine, just send me a message me over Skype (pete_m1) and we can have a discussion.

Good luck xxxxx.

Regards,
Pete

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Another popular question answered

How can I add links and embed videos into my magazine?

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Questions before buying the course

I would like to know if the course has information about how to get your magazine accepted by Apple, how to set your price, how to include links for videos and if there is any individual support and advice.
Thanks,

My reply

Hi Xxx,

First of all the course is based on the bakerframework which is an opensource (free) ebook and newsstand publishing app. all the instructions for creating a magazine are on the website here http://bakerframework.com/tutorials

If you can follow their instructions then there will be no need to get this course 🙂

I created this course because many people have struggled with the full end to end process.

The video shows you step by step how I created a magazine that is accepted by Apple. You get to see everything I do, every screen etc.

The magazine in the video is a free subscription magazine called PUBZIE (go to Pubzie.com to get the download link). To make a paid magazine you follow all the same steps but where I choose the option to configure the free subscription, you would choose a paid one and just choose the pricing you require. To sell individual issues as well, you need to setup each individual issue of the magazine as a separate product in the Apple system, then follow the instructions on the BakerFramework instructions page… It’s pretty easy stuff.

The course has a Q&A section where I answer everyone’s question and when necessary I create new videos showing how to do something, one of which is on how to add video and links.

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask questions direct on Skype.

Regards
Pete

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Generating Screenshots

You mention that screenshots are “generated” when you scroll through the mag the first time in bakerapp debug mode. and you then said “you can pick them up from there” The question is where? Also does that imply I dont have to create screenshots in advance to incude in zipped hpub folder assuming Im not using your software but hand coding.

My reply

That’s right, the screenshots get generated for each page the very first time each page is shown on the device. This has the effect of slowing down the app just a little as it has to do a little more work.

This means there is no need for you to generate screenshots yourself as the app will do this automatically for all of your readers.

You can include the screenshots in your hpub if you wish to help speed up the app the first time each issue is viewed on a users device, but this is not necessary. It’s just an optional step to help improve performance.

If you want to make use of the auto-generated screenshots when in debug mode, follow the steps in on this page… https://github.com/Simbul/baker/wiki/Take-pages-screenshots-for-a-Baker-book

Pete.
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Where to host your magazine files

You mention hosting on servers such as hostgator etc. can one host these files in Google drive or amzazon s3?

My reply

You can definitely host your files on Amazon S3. I do that for one of my magazines and it works great.​

I’ve never used Google Drive. I guess in theory it could but I bet there is some limitation on how many people can access a specific link at any one time similar to dropbox.

Amazon S3 is my preferred method going forward.

Pete

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In-app Purchases

I know someone else asked this question in the course but I’m still not clear on how in-app purchase is added to subsequent issues after the first free one. Also you mention something like they have to be approved each time you upload a new issue. Please clarify the submissions difference between submitting a new publication and a new issue with reference to in-app purchase subscriptions.

My reply

I’ll try and clarify.

When you create a magazine app (or any app for that matter), you have to submit it to Apple. Apple then review your app and approve it to be placed on the itunes app-store.

Any app that includes an in-app purchase also has to have the in-app purchase approved by Apple too before they will allow it to be used in your app. For your magazine app, this means even your free-subscription in app purchase has to be approved too.

The first time a Newsstand app is sent to Apple it must be sent with a new in-app purchase at the same time. This course shows how to publish an app with a free-subscription in-app purchase, so you would create the free-subscription in-app purchase in itunesConnect, configure your app accordingly and then submit it for review at the same time you submit your app for review.

Once y our app is approved Apple also approve the free-subscription at the same time.

Now lets suppose you want to create a paid subscription…

Well, exactly the same process has to be followed but instead of creating a free-subscription in-app purchase, you would create a paid-subscription in-app purchase. This would then get submitted for approval along with your app. Apple would then approve the app and in-app subscription allowing your newsstand magazine app to be downloaded (for free). When a user opens the app they can then choose to subscribe to your magazine using the paid-subscription in-app purchase option that you have setup. This would then give the users access to the individual issues in your magazine.

Now you have a paid-subscription live you may also want allow non-subscribers to buy individual issues. To do this Apple requires each individual issue to have its own in-app purchase. So you would then create what is called a Non-Consumable in-app purchase in iTunesConnect for each individual issue and because Apple require every in-app purchase to be approved, you will have to submit them for approval before you make each issue available for purchase. There is no getting around this. This is how Apple works. See this page from the Baker Wiki for addition points of interest: https://github.com/Simbul/baker/wiki/Tutorial-for-Newsstand-with-In-App-Purchase#create-issues-on-itunes-connect

Individual Issues For Purchase

Once your non-consumable in-app purchase(s) has been approved by apple, you can then available for users to purchase by adding the relevant information into your shelf.json file.  See this link from Baer: https://github.com/Simbul/baker/wiki/Tutorial-for-Newsstand-with-In-App-Purchase#create-a-shelfjson-file. Pay special attention to the example.json file where it shows where to place your individual issue non-consumable “product_id“.

Free Issues

If you have a paid subscription and/or paid issues and wish to offer ‘free issues’ from time to time. This is quite easy. There is no need to setup an In-App purchase for free issues because the user isn’t actually purchasing anything. Apple don’t need to know about it. So all you need to do is create your new issue and add the correct entry to the shelf.json file. Note, you will not need a “product_id” so don’t create an entry for it.

So…

In your case J, if you want to setup a paid subscription, offer the first issue free and then offer paid issues in the future you would:

• Create a Paid Subscription In-App purchase and submit this for approval together with your app.
• Make your first issue free – so there is no need for a separate non-consumable in-app purchase.

I followed this process about 1 year ago with one of my magazines and it worked fine, BUT… I have heard that Apple have been known to reject this combination for new magazine apps. Apple have said something like: If your first issue is free of charge then you need to create a free-subscription. So it may be easier for you to follow this procedure instead:

• Create a Paid Subscription In-App purchase,
• Create a Non-Consumable In-App purchase for your first issue.
• Submit your app for approval together with your Subscription In-App purchase and Non-Consumable In-App purchase.
• Make sure you add the product-id of the non-consumable product to the shelf.json file.
• Submit you app and two in-app purchases to Apple for review.

Once Apple approves everything, your magazine app will be available for download and people can either subscribe to the magazine at the price you setup or purchase the first issue of the magazine.

Options

The procedure listed above isn’t ideal is it. So what are your options?

This is what I think…

• You could start your magazine with 2 individual issues.  One could be a paid issue and the other one free. The free issue could be a completely new issue of you magazine or may be a cut-down version of the paid issue (first 20 pages or something like that).
  I would think Apple would then see evidence that a paid subscription in combination with a free issue is okay because you also have a paid issue too.
• My other suggestion is to follow the procedure above for a paid-subscription and 1 paid issue only, but after apple have approved the app and in-app purchases, you could remove the ‘Product-Id’ line from the shelf.json file for the paid issue along with any price information you may have included in the description. This would then change the issue from paid (using apple’s in-app purchasing system) to a free issue. I haven’t done this myself but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.
  Apple may not approve of this though if they ever revisit your magazine app before your first paid issue is made available

Wow, that was a longer reply than I intended. I hope I haven’t confused matters and that it has helped with understanding the In-App product process a little better.

Pete

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